


and this shall free thee from this present shame

by wireless_router



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Gen, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kun is basically a human trafficker, M/M, Mentions of betting, Slavery, temporary major character death, unbetaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28933785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wireless_router/pseuds/wireless_router
Summary: But the widower is pitied by everyone, after all. He won’t die, not now.
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten, Qian Kun & Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Kudos: 28
Collections: Challenge #4 — Awaken The World





	and this shall free thee from this present shame

**Author's Note:**

> The MCD, while admittedly temporary, happens at the end and thus is permanent for the duration of this piece. They don't really die, though - think of Romeo and Juliet, from which both the title and a quote are from.

Strands of Tchaikovsky drift through the window.

Kun opens the door to his study to find a heap of newspapers on the floor. He stares at them, the freshly printed headlines standing out in stark contrast to the white marble floor. They register slowly, each capitalized letter making its way through his optic nerves, into his brain, his temporal lobe making connections between their pronunciation and their meaning. The finished result is something that elicts little surprise in him; that does not make it any more pleasant.

The walk to the parlour is barely processed. Mahogany panelling and crimson tapestries cover the walls of the second-floor corridor where his study is, the latter bearing patterns he’d designed himself some years back when the house had just been renovated. They were a source of pride, then - but now, his slippers slapping against the leather carpet, he spares it nought a glance. Rounding a second corner, Kun turns left and continues to make his way down the staircase.

While vertically the parlour is one of the closest rooms to his study, a long detour is needed in order to reach the staircase and then another half-round of the corridors to reach where it is on the first floor, due to them both being situated on the southern side of the house. The sounds of the violin had lessened somewhat in volume while he had been walking through the corridor; now it slowly gains, reaching a peak when Kun opens the door to the parlour. On entering, he sees a figure with its back turned towards him slowly serenading the gardens outside. He crosses the spacious room and opens a second door, this time a glass one that leads to the patio.

“Lucas,” he calls, and the music stops. Lucas turns towards him, his mouth set in a grim line, at odds with the piece he’d been playing. Kun realizes that the newspapers had probably been dropped off by him.

“You saw?”

“Yes. Have you contacted Doyoung?”

“I did, about an hour ago. He requested to meet at ten o’clock.”

Kun nods, brows furrowing together as he revives what the headlines had said. _Unprecedented Happening for District 1,_ they had all screamed. Only a quarter or so had been visible from their position on the floor, but it was enough to read a single name. Just three letters, striking and bold. Like a number. Easy to remember. Catchy.

Ten.

-

They meet Doyoung in the drawing-room. It isn’t strictly necessary - the displays currently presenting them with a view of Doyoung and his office are easily moved, products from the line of ultra-light devices from District 3. Unreleased to the public, though - they just happen to have some useful friends. But this room is heavily proofed from both auditory input and output, making it useful for meetings where a vein may be slit from a misplaced word.

There is an old saying; blood is thicker than water. Sometimes, it is the only thing left to flow.

“Tell me the odds,” Kun demands as soon as Doyoung nods in greeting.

“You remember how pre-Games they were twenty to one? Now it’s eleven to one.”

Lucas taps his index finger on the narrower display standing in front of him. At about three meters tall, its height is more than enough for what appears in response; a life-size 3D scan of District 7’s male tribute, Ten. An index of details and notes provided by medical examiners float next to corresponding body parts. Kun gives them a brief scan, already familiar with most of the specifics. A few glow blue, indicating developments that have occurred after the Games started. Since there’s no way tributes can be examined once they’ve entered the arena, the blue notes are approximations by certified specialists, based on camera footage. He, along with Lucas had visited a related facility last year. A young doctor who introduced himself as Hendery had shown them around, pointing out the cinema-sized screens where medical personnel gathered to analyze the tributes. It was a gruelling process, Kun had learned. Nearly every day brought with it death, and while watching someone die without being able to help was excruciating, watching them be burned, electrocuted, or otherwise ravaged by both the Gamemakers and other tributes was even worse. But it was necessary, for the Gamemakers, and also for people like Kun.

Ten boasts no major injuries for the time being. A minor miracle, considering it had been a week since the Games have begun. It is not, however, something that works in Kun’s favour.

Leaning forward, Lucas taps the model’s left knee, where a glowing orange triangle indicates a pre-existing injury.

“We were counting on this to act up and make him Career fodder. What happened?”

“It refused to take part in our subtle machinations, that’s what happened,” Doyoung mutters. Noticing Kun’s eyebrows beginning to rise, he waves a hand in apology. “Sorry. Last night’s taking its toll.”

“I understand,” Kun sighs, and picks up a pen from the desk at his left. Lucas sits on his right, tapping the display and checking the blue notes for further updates. “I fall asleep in my study and wake up three hours later to news that this -” he gestures to the model of Ten, which is now blinking in his general direction “- has completely exceeded our expectations and killed a One.”

“She was such a pretty one, too.” Doyoung laments. “Would’ve fetched good money even without a few limbs.”

“That may be a loss worth mourning, but answer the question, first. What happened? He was limping for the first six days, what happened yesterday that a sponsor decided to send in a cure?”

“You’re not going to like this,” Doyoung warns before placing his index finger on his side of the screen and dragging into view a video. It expands to fill the entire display, Doyoung’s face disappearing for a second and then popping up in a separate, smaller window.

They watch, Lucas with both eyebrows raised in amused attention, as Ten dashes through a thick pine forest with another tribute with exceptionally expressive eyes following right behind. A light smattering of snow crunches under their feet, the dead pine needles on the ground glinting with frost. Kun can hear something in the distance. No doubt the two can as well because in the next instant Ten is hoisting up the other boy into a nearby tree. Taeyong from Eleven, Kun realizes as the boy, despite having the eyes of a doe and the body to match clambers easily up the trunk. He’s wearing gloves, and something glints on his ankles as he makes his way up surprisingly fast. Spurs, probably, and a set of gloves. He remembers them being in several of the packs placed in the Cornucopia.

Meanwhile, Ten pulls out a small cylinder clipped to his belt. It expands in his hands, becoming a long staff that stands taller than him. Thinner at the tip, it resembles the long stick commonly used in the Districs to either beat fruit or birds out of trees. He lowers his stance, eyes darting from tree to tree, and -

\- there she is, the female tribute from Eleven, tanned and muscular from a childhood spent working under the sun. She resembles the pine trees, dark and towering over Ten, who points the tip of the staff in her direction with steady hands.

“Where is he.”

It’s a statement, heavy with old resentment and anger. Ten, to his credit, smirks.

“If you mean my boyfriend, then I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Surely you understand - spilling my heart to him is something I do gladly, but spilling his whereabouts -”

He is forced to cut off abruptly in favour of dodging to the left, the sickle Eleven had been hiding cutting into the space he’d been occupying seconds before. She snorts, unperturbed at the miss.

“Gimme the mayor’s son, and I’ll maybe leave you to be killed by someone else. I got nothing against you, Seven.”

No chance, Kun thinks. He’s got an image to keep up. He can see now where this is going.

“I don’t have anything against you either,” Ten laughs, waving the tip of his staff to and fro. Eleven’s eyes follow it for a second, then flicker up to the pine tree behind Ten. From the camera’s point of view, Taeyong is visible between the branches, nearly level with the lens and gnawing anxiously at his bottom lip. Kun doubts if much can be seen from below, but she’s from the same District - chances are she can discern him anyways.

This is the moment when Ten strikes, winding Eleven with a quick blow to the solar plexus and following up with another to both her kneecaps. An inefficient strike, but not ineffective; the girl stumbles, managing to raise the sickle and intercept a third strike aimed at her head. The clang of metal on metal echoes through the woods. Starting at each blow, Taeyong slowly starts to pull out the spurs in his shoes.

The two spar on, Ten alternating between wide sweeps and quick strikes as Eleven tries to come closer. The length of his staff, in the woods, is both a liability and an asset; it restricts his opponent’s moves, leaving her no choice but to advance, but that applies to him as well. Eleven comes closer and closer, Ten dancing out of reach every time until he raises it horizontally to parry, only to realize it’s a feint. She snags the centre of the staff and nearly sends Ten flying. He stumbles, losing his balance, and drops his weapon. Eleven knocks him onto the ground, straddling his back and dangling the sickle in front of his face.

“Tell me where the little flower is hiding. Maybe I’ll let you go, eh?”

She glances up, then around them. Kun belatedly notices the blood near her ears. He hadn’t bothered to check her notes, but that she doesn’t seem to have noticed Taeyong, combined with the slight lolling of her head seems to point at a concussion. Beneath her, Ten has stopped struggling.

“Then again, he’d be long gone by now if any of you had half a brain-”

A slight whoosh, and then a thump sounds through the speakers. Eleven freezes. Ten takes the moment of distraction to grab his staff and thrust it through her chest in one smooth movement. She collapses on her back as Ten rises to his feet, spur in her neck digging in deeper as it’s braced against the forest floor.

Ten thrusts his staff into each of her eyes, and then her mouth while Taeyong climbs back down, then pulls him in for a kiss. The cannon sounds while they walk off towards the sunset, holding hands.

The video stops there. Doyoung’s face fills the screen again as the rocking-chair Lucas is sitting in squeaks in response to him leaning back against the headrest.

A kitsch and poetic ending as any. Kun has no doubts that they’ve become the Capitol’s darlings by now. Taeyong had already been going there, photographs of his face decorating the front pages from the day of his reaping. Ten, however, had been given less of the spotlight. His smallish stature and his limp had pointed at a typical reaped tribute from the outside Districts - that is, Districts without Careers. It had been quite a surprise when some three days after Ten’s reaping, Kun had received a request to buy him.

With the knee, Kun had thought Ten would be easy to collect. A few cryptic messages to the Career alliance, and they’d hunt the boy down and leave him to bleed himself out. Then when he’s stopped moving, send in a hovercraft with the necessary equipment and personnel, nurse him back to life, and charge a few times the cost to his buyer. Standard procedure. Except as of last night, Ten seems to have thwarted his efforts. As for his knee…

“It wasn’t a cure, was it.”

Lucas speaks before him, apparently having arrived at the same conclusion. He wears the same amused expression as before, eyebrows raised and the corners of his mouth curling slightly upwards. He takes a personal interest in the tributes, both as a professional broker who manages the bets placed on each of their heads and as Kun’s unofficial business partner. As a rule-of-thumb, a higher bet means more people invested in the tribute. Whether it be from sponsorships or the tribute themselves, they are harder to kill, with the added risk that more investors also mean a larger pool of people who might recognize them. Lucas handles that part in exchange for a share in Kun’s fees.

“No, it wasn’t,” Kun agrees. He presses the orange triangle on the model’s knee until a smaller rectangle pops out. _Examined by Xiaojun._ “he moves too smoothly for any sort of sustained damage.”

“Well, that’s another doctor to tell John about, putting down a healed injury as active.” Lucas says. “A basic mistake, trusting what comes out of a tribute’s mouth.”

“A man too naïve for his own good,” Kun agrees. “Though I have to admit, keeping up an act for nearly two weeks is rather impressive. As is his choice in narrative.”

“‘Love at first sight’ is what the media is going with right now,” says Doyoung. “We need to act before the Gamemakers decide to use that for their own advantage.”

Kun sighs. He gestures to Doyoung, the pen he’d picked up earlier trapped between his index and middle fingers.

“Call Yangyang for me, won’t you?”

-

The eighth day of the Games sees a total of six people in the arena. Four tributes have been killed by Ten now, with Taeyong managing to finish off a fifth when Ten fails to kill the last one by skewering them lengthwise.

Kun sits on the sofa next to Yangyang and Lucas. They’ve darkened the living room window, choosing to watch the Games on it while taking their dinner. The camera is currently focusing on the Capitol’s favourite couple: Ten and Taeyong.

The two had received a parachute yesterday bearing a basket of fruit. Some of them had been immediately cut up to be dried. The smaller berries were stowed away in the makeshift pack Taeyong had fashioned from the silk parachute. Now, he offers the largest berry to Ten, who frowns at it and mouths _ew._

“You know this is probably going to staple him as the winner, right?” Yangyang asks Kun, prodding him with a fork.

Kun winces. He hates romantic clichés, but sometimes an incident can be more alluring than its subjects, the drama drawing the attention that may have instead been directed to detail. Yangyang grins in response to his nod, teeth glinting in the light from the screen. “Reckon he’s going to set a record for the lowest-scoring victor, then.”

Taeyong, with his doe eyes and soft demeanor. With a score of three, his were one of the lowest out of the four-and-twenty tributes reaped. Lucas had chuckled at this over dinner that day, remarking all his sponsers would probably be middle-aged women.

But the widower is pitied by everyone - he won’t die, not now. The Capitol reveres beauty, after all, clamours for even a small taste of it . They’d keep him alive till the end of the Games, albeit with a little swaying from Lucas.

Taeyong finally persuades Ten to let him pop the berry into his mouth. The three watch as Ten makes a face, the tension in his jaw clearly visible as he slowly chews on the offending foodstuff.

A few minutes pass, the two making their way cautiously between the thick pines. Kun can feel Yangyang shifting impatiently beside him. He almost tells him to stop, but before the words have left his mouth -

\- Ten collapses, the berries in his pack rolling across the ground. Taeyong is immediately at his side, fingertips pressed to Ten’s neck as he looks around for the culprit. There is none, and he sobs, despairing, as he seems to find no pulse. The camera zooms in on Ten’s chest; unmoving and still, with Taeyong’s tears slowly spreading across the fabric like bloodstains.

Next to Kun, Lucas murmurs:

_“_ _‘_ _No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;_

_The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade_

_To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall,_

_Like death, when he shuts up the day of life.’”_

Kun sighs.

“Prepare your hovercraft,” he says to Yangyang, pressing a button to summon the butler. “Juliet is waiting for us.”

**Author's Note:**

> Lucas quotes from Romeo and Juliet:
> 
> No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;  
> The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade  
> To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall,  
> Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;  
> Each part, deprived of supple government,  
> Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:  
> And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death  
> Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,  
> And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.


End file.
